Category: Epidemic

Addiction

Purdue Pharma To Plead Guilty To Opioid Criminal Charges

Purdue Pharma Agrees To Plead Guilty To 3 Opioid Criminal Charges On October 21, 2020, the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma agreed to plead guilty to 3 federal criminal charges. According to experts, the company helped drive the Opioid epidemic which led to the death of more than 470,000 people since 2000. The new $8.3 billion … Continued

Crime

Police Warn Residents About Fatal Batch of “Gray Death” In Southern Louisiana

Gray Death Strikes A Louisiana Community In early February, the St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office began to warn residents about a dangerous drug that police officers have encountered during several arrests. The substance, “Gray Death,” is so potent that merely touching it can be lethal. While the police in Georgia, Ohio, Alabama, Florida, and Pennsylvania … Continued

Crime

Insys Founder and Top Executives Sentenced to Years in Prison

An Opioids Conspiracy Leads Seven Insys Executives to Prison Last May, a federal jury in Boston convicted John Kapoor and six other executives of Insys Therapeutics of conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a law which permits the prosecution of the leaders of a criminal enterprise. This month, a judge sentenced all of … Continued

Addiction

Study Finds Correlation Between Opioid Overdoses and Car Factory Closures

A Tragic Link Between Car Factory Closures and the Opioid Epidemic Last December, a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania published a study in the academic journal JAMA Internal Medicine which found a correlation between Opioid overdoses and the diminishing manufacturing sector of the American economy. “Our findings confirm the general intuition that declining … Continued

Crime

Supreme Court Declines to Consider Arizona’s Lawsuit Against the Sackler Family

The Supreme Court Spares the Sacklers Another Trial On December 9, the United States Supreme Court declined to consider a lawsuit against the Sackler family that the State of Arizona presented directly to the nation’s highest tribunal earlier this year. The Sackler family owns Purdue Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer and vendor of OxyContin. Almost every state and … Continued

Addiction

Reckitt Benckiser, Former Invidior Parent Company, Settles US Investigation for $1.4 Billion

Reckitt Benckiser Pays the Biggest Opioid Settlement in History On July 11, Reckitt Benckiser, a UK-based health products manufacturer, reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to pay a settlement of $1.4 billion for its role in fueling the Opioid Epidemic. Reckitt Benckiser was the parent company of … Continued

Awareness

New Study Shows that Opioid Overdoses Are Higher in States With Legalized Medical Marijuana

States with Legalized Medical Marijuana See Rise in Opioid Overdoses One of the main arguments for the legalization of marijuana across the United States has been the idea that the drug can help combat the Opioid Epidemic. By giving doctors an alternative to the prescription of Opioids for treating chronic pain, many believe that the … Continued

Addiction

Insys Becomes First Opioid Manufacturer to File for Bankruptcy Protection

Insys, a Major Contributor to the Opioid Epidemic, Faces Justice In 1990, billionaire John Kapoor founded Insys Therapeutics. His company was destined to grow into a painkiller producer worth almost $150 million by 2017. Although Insys was successful for many years, recent awareness of the catastrophic Opioid Epidemic which Insys helped supply has finally stopped … Continued

Crime

Update: Ohio Doctor Arrested for Overdose Deaths of 25 Patients

Ohio Doctor, William Husel, Held on $1 Million Bond for 25 Fentanyl Overdoses In December 2018, Columbus-area Mount Carmel Health System fired Dr. William Husel, 43, on the suspicion of misconduct in the deaths of 34 patients. On Wednesday, he was arrested and charged by Franklin County, Ohio, for purposely overdosing 25 patients with the … Continued